Written By: Brett Grendahl is a ten-year veteran mortgage originator who now works by referral only. He also is the co-founder of Tidalwave Trader, a living textbook for those that want to learn how to buy & sell stocks and make money doing it. (www.BrettGrendahl.com, www.TidalWaveTrader.com)
Originating mortgages in 2008 in many ways seems like 1998 to me. If you’ve been in the business ten years or more you might feel the same. As I evaluate what’s happening in my mortgage practice and what steps I need to act on to generate business, in so many ways, it’s back to the basics!
One of the basics from the way I originated ten years ago was the fact that you’d find me hammering the phone all day long. I was responding to new calls and culling the stacks of paper (prospects) that I had spoken to in the past. If I wasn’t one the phone, I didn’t feel productive. If my phone wasn’t ringing I was ringing someone else’s!
Over the years and after the spoiling of the refinance boom, I have to admit that I got lax and a little rusty. So many years with high volume of new prospects calling had the effect of getting me out of practice with one of the pillars of my early success in the mortgage business. Throw in the growing ease of communicating by email and there were more reasons those skills were gathering dust.
Well, the market for originating mortgages today has reverted back to one that rewards the hustler with the energy & drive to make it happen. You need to wake up each day and make business happen—another way of saying it — every day you wake up—you’re broke!
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